SOC281 - Domination + Resistance

Question 1

Domination

Answer 1

• Bourdieu: upper class defines what is good - dominant groups use culture to justify their positions
• kind of culture that works well in domination depends on the nature of the field
• instead use their superior knowledge of kinds of culture defined as relevant to doing their jobs well
• Domination not always working, nothing happens unless employees do job, managers need to connect + motivate employees to do job + do it well
• Top ppl have power on making definitions on what is good through media, school, other institutions that known to make judgements on what is good

Question 2

Domination

Answer 2

• Ppl at top more deploy culture important in field – up to date with business magazines, business reviews, trends in management – needed for jobs + legitimate their more superior class location in eyes of other ppl
• Managers constantly trying to convince employees they have a skillset important + more superior
• Employees don’t buy it – electricians ranked managers lower
• Ppl below have no use because it’s stuff they don’t do
• Ppl using upper cultural capital to impress ppl, often fail

Question 3

Life chances

Answer 3

• higher up you are, the better your chances
• direct determinants of life chances:
• income + wealth - vital to meeting material needs in our money economy = more freedom to shape life
• education - powerful source of knowledge, habits, etc. useful in improving one’s chances – longer life, healthier

Question 4

Life chances

Answer 4

•Higher class jobs have:
-higher incomes, greater work autonomy, more varied + creative (less routinized) work, higher levels of required skill, healthier, safer, + more pleasant work conditions, greater job security, lower levels of alienation 
•higher the class, the better life chances
•Role of culture is very elaborate, starts at parents class location, socialization, education, jobs you get, how you do them, how well you get recognized

Question 5

Lower class culture

Answer 5

• Bourdieu describes popular culture as a taste of its own

• includes preference for “naturally,” easily enjoyable things over formal stylistic flourishes
• “taste for necessity” - enjoying good things one can get – bacon
• Bourdieu: so popular + elite taste react to each other
- elites sneer at popular taste as uneducated, vulgar, inferior
- while “the ppl” sneer at elite taste as pointless, ugly, meaningless, etc.

Question 6

Lower class culture

Answer 6

• also sometimes describes working class culture as dominated
• ppl feel their taste is inferior
- feel unable to cope with upper class taste
-sometimes FEEL that they are being dominated
• even when ppl partly realize that they are being excluded, they lack the cultural resources to fight back effectively

Question 7

Lower class culture

Answer 7

• must conceptualize their own lives + tastes in upper class terms for lack of institutional supports for their own culture
• Bourdieu: popular culture as just an ABSENCE
a lack of cultural capital (elite culture), hence a vacuum - FEW items there are at the bottom of the France chart
- similar to Veenstra’s chart: few practices at the bottom of the social ladder in Canada

Question 8

Lower class resistance

Answer 8

• electricians gave equally high ratings to the professions + the skilled trades + much lower ratings to managerial/white collar + service/low skilled occupations
• lower level ppl routinely doubt upper status claims to legitimate power
• do not see owners + managers actually doing something, producing a clearly valuable good/service
• Managers constantly trying to convince employees they have skillset important + more superior, often fail

Question 9

Lower class resistance

Answer 9

• Ppl below have no use because it’s stuff they don’t do
• Everybody is better educated now, each generation is more highly educated
• Ppl at botom have skillset that give them power to resist - through associations that allows them to gain power + leverage providing them with mutual support
• Can get rich + passionate appretiation in the things they do if they are around enough ppl that like the same things

Question 10

Lower class resistance

Answer 10

• not all are brainwashed on upper class definitions of what is beautiful, valuable
• Way ppl at bottom understand, appreciate, appropriate diff than above
• Ppl at bottom not always convinced upper class activities are better
• Some lower class know upper class is trying to make them seem inferior
• Lower class ppl may prize skill + apply mindset to appreciation of art or other activities